Across the North Sea

As we mentioned in our last update we were planning to head to the Netherlands early April but we did not leave Burnham until the 12th April. We had number of problems to deal with before we could leave. Some were minor such as the diesel heater switch that fell apart in Graham’s hand. More seriously the new sail sliders would not pass freely over the gate on the mast as the battens had sliders with outer wheels. A number of phone calls later and it became obvious that an off the shelf solution did not exist. Graham drew up a plan for a new gate cover to be made… Read More

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Another trip begins

Over the winter Island Girl was hauled out. A number of essential maintenance tasks were carried out. Antifoul was applied, anodes replaced and just after the new year, it was back in the water. A trip up the mast was required as during an inspection Graham made in the Autumn he found a corroded split pin (cotter pin in the US) that needed replacing, these are only 3 years old so really should not have suffered from serious corrosion. It was similar to the one that failed in Ramsgate. This time it was at the top of the mast and out of sight. Fortunately, the old corroded pin came out… Read More

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Preparing for Winter

We have been back in the UK three months now and have decided to spend the winter in Leamington Spa so over the last week we have moved into a flat.  We hired a van and filled it, we could not belive that we had so much stuff stored on the boat. We will need to spend some time in Burnham on Crouch as we need to carry out some maintenance and prepare the boat for next years adventures. We spent the first month in Eastbourne, the weather was good and our quarantine passed quickly. We had daily calls from the NHS track and trace team and Graham had a… Read More

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